Forms design:what matters to users?

Caroline Jarrett

FORMS

CONTENT

Seminar with MSc students, University of York

Caroline Jarretttwitter @cjformscaroline.jarrett@effortmark.co.uk

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Feedback on preparation: students chose some papers to read and commented

• “Should I use a drop-down?” – (Allen Miller and Jarrett, 2001)– http://www.formsthatwork.com/files/Articles/dropdown.pdf– Useful, mostly to help educate/persuade someone else

• “Setting usability requirements for a web site containing forms”– (Allen Miller and Jarrett, 2002)– http://www.formsthatwork.com/files/Articles/2001-AllenMiller-Jarrett-Set-reqts.pdf– OK, but not clear how to act on the content recommended

• “Designing usable forms: the three-layer model of the form” – (Jarrett, 2000)– http://www.formsthatwork.com/files/Articles/DesigningUsableForms.pdf– Crucial paper, model for how to think about forms

• “How to make your shopping cart suck less” – (The Oatmeal, 2010) - warning, contains very coarse language– http://theoatmeal.com/comics/shopping_cart– Fun way to get some good advice about one type of form, if you don’t mind the style

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Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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Lots of discussion about colons and labelsPick one style. Stick with it. It’s not worth arguing about.

http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3200.asp and http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3112.asp 5

Sentence or title case?Sentence case wins. (But only just).

• This is sentence case

• This is Title Case

• This Is Capitalisation Of Each Initial Letter

• ISO-9241 part 17 says• "Initial upper-case (capital) letter for field labels: To facilitate readability, the text field

labels begin with an upper-case letter. The rest of the label should contain lower case (small) letters except for cases where the label is a logo, an acronym or language convention that requires each word in the label to begin with a capital letter.“

• Sentence case is slightly more legible due to familiarity

• It’s not worth changing a big suite of forms to fix this

http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2594.asp 6

Required field indicator?

• Miriam Frost Jungwirth:• “I was once charged with testing that.

Seriously. $10,000 of manhours testing asterisk placement.

There was no difference in user performance. At all.“

• I’m a little more interested in this discussion:– Indicators placed to the right of the field are likely to be invisible– Put the text describing the indicator at the top of the fields

(that is, not at the end of the form and not in the instructions)– Use the same indicator in both places (text and next to required field)– Use the alt-text ‘required’ (not ‘asterisk’)– Always indicate required; don’t switch to indicating optional– If you feel the urge to indicate optional, use the full word ‘optional’– Do not use colour on its own as an indicator

Miriam Frost Jungwirth, posting on CHI-WEB, 19 April 2007

There’s a theme developing here ....

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An example of required field indicators at the wrong end of the field

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Which is the most important problem?

• Examine the Michigan Department of Transport form

• Find as many usability problems as you can

• Decide which ONE problem is the most important

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Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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How to look at a form

1. Don’t look at it (yet)

2. Decide on a persona and scenario

3. Think about:– The differences between that persona and scenario and the most typical

person in the target audience and what they want to do– How different you are from that persona and scenario

4. Now try using the form ‘in character’– Make notes as you go

5. Review the experience– Relationship– Conversation– Appearance Jarrett, C and Quesenbery, W (2006) “How to look at a form”,

Proceedings of the UPA conference Minneapolis

New web site for finding and recommendinguser experience books

• Each team, start by creating your persona and scenario: – Decide on a topic you want to research– Decide on a book you’d like to recommend

• Organise your test session:– Nominate one of you as participant– The other one becomes observer/note-taker

• Go to it!

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Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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Forms for getting help at home for an elderly person

• Why does this count as ‘harder’ testing?

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Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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Easy to critique, harder to fix

• We reviewed the Basecamp ‘before’ form

• Article with the ‘before’ and ‘after’ forms• http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1867-design-decisions-new-signup-form

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Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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A/B testing

Varied:

• photo

• background

• colours

• shading

• buttons

• preamble

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In our 2004 study, we found that only a better preamble made any real difference

• We tested a wide selection of visual variants of a form

• Variants improved conversion rates

• The only variation that achieved statistical significance

was the improved preamble:– Shorter– Clearer– Better layout

Jarrett, C. and Minott, C. (2004) Making a better web form Proceedings of the Usability Professionals' Association Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.http://www.formsthatwork.com/files/Articles/BetterForm.pdf 19

66 words20

28 words21

Agenda Let’s stress about details

Try some testing

Try some harder testing

Try some redesign

A detail that matters to users

Final reminder: it’s what you ask and

why that really matters

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It’s what you ask and why that really matters

• The form will certainly fail if the users can’t find it

• Users rarely abandon forms because of:– Label placement– Use of colons– Required field indicators– Sentence or title case

• Users often abandon forms or lie on them because of:– Questions that they don’t understand– Questions that they have no answer for– Intrusive questions that are inappropriate to the task– Validations that refuse their preferred or correct answer

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Thanksand pleasecontact me

Caroline Jarrett

carolinej@effortmark.co.uk

+44 1525 370379

I’m a consultant, hire me:Consultancy: www.effortmark.co.uk

Training: www.usabilitythatworks.com

Free stuff:Forms advice: www.formsthatwork.com

Editing: www.editingthatworks.com

Columns: www.usabilitynews.com

“Caroline’s Corner”

www.uxmatters.com

“Good Questions” 24